The History of England From the Norman Conquest to the Death of John

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.Not long afterwards by the influence of Henry heobtained as wife, Geoffrey of Anjou s sister Sibyl, who hadbeen taken from William Clito.Geoffrey and Matilda were married at Le Mans, on June g,by the Bishop of Avranches, in the presence of a bril-liant assembly of nobles and prelates, and with the appearanceof great popular rejoicing.After a stay there of three weeks,Henry returned to Normandy, and Matilda, with her husbandand father-in-law, went to Angers.The jubilation with whichthe bridal party was there received was no doubt entirely genu-ine.Already before this marriage an embassy from the king-dom of Jerusalem had sought out Fulk, asking him to cometo the aid of the Christian state, and offering him the handof the heiress of the kingdom with her crown.This offer henow accepted, and left the young pair in possession of Anjou.But this happy outcome of Henry s policy, which promised tosettle so many difficulties, was almost at the outset threat-ened with disaster against which even he could not provide.Matilda was not of gentle disposition.She never made iteasy for her friends to live with her, and it is altogetherprobable that she took no pains to conceal her scorn of thismarriage and her contempt for the Angevins, including verylikely her youthful husband.At any rate, a few days after1129 THE DEATH OFHenry s return to England, July I 129, he was followed by CHAP.the news that Geoffrey had repudiated and cast off his wife,and that Matilda had returned to Rouen with few attendants.Henry did not, however, at once return to Normandy, and itwas two full years before Matilda came back to England.The disagreement between Geoffrey and Matilda ran itscourse as a family quarrel.It might endanger the futureof Henry s plans, but it caused him no present difficulty.His continental position was now, indeed, secure and wasthreatened during the short remainder of his life by noneof his enemies, though his troubles with his son-in-law werenot yet over.The defeat of Robert and the crushing of themost powerful nobles had taught the barons a lesson whichdid not need to be repeated, and England was not easilyaccessible to the foreign enemies of the king.In Normandythe case was different, and despite Henry s constant successesand his merciless severity, no victory had been final so longas any claimant lived who could be put forward to disputehis possession.Now followed some years of peace, in whichthe history of Normandy is as barren as the history of Eng-land had long been, until the marriage of Matilda raised upa new claimant to disturb the last months of her father s life.During Henry s last stay in Normandy death had removedone who had once filled a large place in history, but who hadsince passed long years in obscurity.Ranulf Flambard diedin I having spent the last part of his life in doing whathe could to redeem the earlier, by his work on the cathedralof Durham, where in worthy style he carried on the workof his predecessor, William of St.Calais.Soon after diedWilliam the bishop whom Henry had appointed be-fore he was himself crowned, and in his place the kingappointed his nephew, Henry of Blois, brother of CountStephen, who was to play so great a part in the troubles thatwere soon to begin.About the same time we get evidencethat Henry had not abandoned his practice of taking finesfrom the married clergy, and of allowing them to retain theirwives.The year I 130, which Henry spent in England, is madememorable by a valuable and unique record giving us a sightof the activities of his reign on a side where we have little1130THEother evidence.The Pipe Roll of that year has come downThe Pipe Rolls, SO called apparently from the shapet oin which they were filed for preservation, are the records ofthe accounting of the Exchequer Court with the sheriffs forthe revenues which they had collected from their counties, andwhich were bound to hand over to the treasury.Froma in the reign of Henry s grandson, these rolls becomealmost continuous, and reveal to us in detail many featuresof the financial system of these later times.This one recordfrom the reign of the first Henry is a slender foundation forour knowledge of the financial organization of the kingdom,but from it we know with certainty that this organizationhad already begun as it was afterward developed.It has already been said that the single organ of the feudalstate, by which government in all its branches was carriedon, was the We shall find it difficult to realizea fact like this, or to understand how so crude a system ofgovernment operated in practice, unless we first have clearlyin mind the fact that the men of that time did not reasonmuch about their government.They did not distinguishone function of the state from another, nor had they yetbegun to think that each function should have its distinctmachinery in the governmental system.All that came later,as the result of experience, or more accurately, of the pres-sure of business.AS yet, business and machinery both wereundeveloped and undifferentiated.In a single session of thecourt advice might be given to the king on some questionof foreign policy and on the making or revising of a lawa suit between two of the king s vassals might be heardand decided and no one would feel that work of different andsomewhat inconsistent types had been done.seemed asproperly the function of the assembly as the other.In thecomposition of the court, and in the practice as to time andplace of meeting, there was something of the same indefinite-ness.The court was the It was his personal machinefor managing the business of his great property, the state.As such it met when and where the king pleased, certainmeetings being annually expected; and it was composed ofany persons who stood in immediate relations with the king,Edited by Joseph Hunter and published by the Record Commission in 1833.THE REGZS1130presence he saw fit to call for by special or general CHAP.his vassals and the officers of his household orgovernment.If a vassal of the king had a complaint againstanother, and needed the assistance of the king to enforce hisview of the case, he might look upon his standing in theas a right; but in general it was a burden, aservice, which could be demanded of him because of someestate or office which he held.In the reign of the first Henry we can indeed trace thebeginnings of differentiation in the machinery of government,but the process was as yet wholly unconscious.We find inthis reign evidence of a large and of a smallThe difference had probably existed in the two pre-ceding reigns, but it now becomes more apparent because theincreasing business of the state makes it more prominent.More frequent meetings of the were necessary, butthe barons of the kingdom could not be in constant attend-ance at the court and occupied with its business.The largecourt was the assembly of all the barons, meeting on occa-sions only, and on special summons.The small court waspermanently in session, or practically so, and was composedof the king s household officers and of such barons or bishopsas might be in attendance on the king or present at the time.The distinction thus beginning was destined to lead to mostimportant results, plainly to be seen in the constitution ofto-day, but it was wholly unnoticed at the time [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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